Your Thursday evening update on Salem news

Good evening, Salem.
Parking Minto-Brown Island Park will soon involve less mud.
The city of Salem is kicking off a parking lot paving project in February to replace gravel lots near the dog park with pavement. The $1.54 million work is funded by the bond Salem voters approved in November 2022 to pay for infrastructure projects and fire equipment.
The work should be completed in the fall, city spokesman Trevor Smith said.
“The heavily used gravel parking lot surfaces deteriorate as weather conditions worsen throughout the year, increasing maintenance costs and creating flooding issues on nearby paths and trails. This project will alleviate flooding issues around the parking lots, increase their size, improve parking efficiency, and increase the availability of spaces serving the dog area and popular trailheads for the park,” a city news release said.
As part of the project, the city will remove 34 trees in parking lots 2 and 3. Most are non-native European white birch, thought he removal includes three native cottonwood trees.“This preemptive action is taken to avoid impacts on nesting birds and to remove trees in declining health due to visible infestation of bronze birch borer,” the city announcement said.
Each tree removed will be replaced with a native tree in the park.
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